Words Massimiliano Macaluso
It’s hard to imagine Cagliari Calcio without their home for almost 50 years; Sant’Elia. And even though Rossoblù side left the stadium a few seasons ago, it’s difficult to get used to their parting.
For a start, the stadium hosted Cagliari home games from 1970 until 2012 and then again between 2013 and 2017. In that time, precious memories of the island team were formed. While the club’s famous Scudetto win in 1970 came a couple of months before they moved to Sant’Elia, the first goal Cagliari scored there came from Gigi Riva himself, netting in a 4-1 win over Massese in the Coppa Italia.
That Scudetto win also gave us Sant’Elia’s famous 64 concrete supports, added to support a second tier of seating by architect Giorgio Lombardi, who realised that the growing enthusiasm of the Sardinian people would require additions to be made to Antonio Sulprizio’s original 1964 plans. The new design could accommodate an impressive 70,000 people and while it wasn’t full every week, the sold out signs came out for the club’s debut European Cup meeting. In front of his adoring public, Riva scored twice in a 3-0 win over Saint-Étienne.
A few months after opening Sant’Elia made the news as a fire took hold. Then two orange-throwing incidents put the stadium back in the spotlight. First, in 1971 fans lobbed oranges onto the pitch after the then Italian Manager Ferruccio Valcareggi benched the Cagliari players in his squad for a friendly match against Spain in the stadium. Then, six years later a fan launched an orange which hit a visiting Lecce player. The away side were awarded a walkover win, which effectively ended the clubs hopes of promotion to Serie A.
In 1990, Italy hosted the World Cup. Cagliari was chosen, along with Palermo as the location for Group C, consisting of England, Egypt, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland. The decision was primarily designed to ensure England’s fans, who at the time had an awful reputation for hooliganism, would be easy to contain and watch over. In effect, Sardinia was an island prison.
Sant’Elia was given a fresh lick of paint and played host to all three England group games. The games themselves, despite a cast of players including Gary Lineker, Bryan Robson, Paul Gascoigne, Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard were surprisingly low scoring. First, England and Ireland drew 1-1.
While not the best game of football, Sant’Elia’s World Cup debut was memorable for many reasons. First, it was the first appearance of the ‘Boys In Green’ in a World Cup. Also, in unseasonal weather for June, the game was played in a summer downpour which came to the aid of England’s Gary Lineker. With England leading 1-0 Lineker and Irish defender Kevin Moran clashed just inside the Irish half. On the ground Lineker can be seen saying “I’ve shit myself” and having to wipe his shorts and hands on the damp grass. Luckily for Lineker it’s unlikely any of the 35,000 in attendance noticed.
Another England draw followed in the second as this time Bobby Robson’s team drew 0-0 with the Netherlands, before finishing with a 1-0 win over Egypt, which saw them through as Group Winners. A Round of 16 tie with Belgium in Bologna awaited, meaning England and their fans left Sardinia for the Italian mainland. The locals were not all that disappointed to see them go. Pre-tournament warnings of carnage had largely not come to pass, but in their wake the English had made few friends and left memories of fights requiring drunken brawls to be broken up by throwing a couple of perpetrators into the sea.
Following the World Cup, Cagliari, recently returned to the top-flight from Serie C by Claudio Ranieri, continued to perform well and qualified for the 1993-94 UEFA Cup. Sant’Elia became a fortress for the team, who remained unbeaten in the stadium in a memorable run to the semi-finals. Dinamo Bucharest, Malines, Trabzonspor and Juventus were all knocked out by Casteddu before they were finally beaten over two-legs by Inter Milan, despite a 3-2 win at Sant’Elia.
That run was to prove a highlight however as within three seasons, the club found themselves back in Serie B. As the club yo-yo’d between Serie A and Serie B, the stadium played host to some fantastic names in Italian football including Massimiliano Allegri, Enzo Francescoli, Daniel Fonseca, Luid Oliveir and Gianfranco Zola.
The new millennium saw the first signs of problems emerging at Sant’Elia. A lack of maintenance led to sections of the ground closed for safety reasons, significantly reducing the capacity. In an effort to partly combat that, temporary metal stands appeared.
In 2003 Cagliari endured their first exile, heading first to Campo Sportivo Nino Manconi in the small northern town Tempio Pausania, 250km and a six-hour round trip away.
Another, even further, exile was imposed by former President Massimo Cellino in 2012, who took the team 1,000km away to Trieste - a town in Italy’s far north east, bordering Croatia. Initially Cellino’s threat was seen as a provocation, but sensationally became a reality. It was in Trieste at the Nereo Rocco stadium where Juventus would clinch the 2012 Serie A title with a 2-0 win over the ‘home’ side.
The next season Cagliari returned to Sardinia and their home city, playing at Stadio Is Arenas in Quartu Sant'Elena. This wasn’t without twists however and safety issues again saw the club temporarily displaced to Parma’s Ennio Tardini and then all the way back to Trieste before coming back home to Sant'Elia. Throughout this period Cagliari President Tommaso Giulini attempted to bring the stadium up to the required standard for the club to remain.
At the end of 2016-17, it was announced that Sant’Elia would no longer be an option for the club and they were forced to definitively move on. In the last game of that season Fabio Pisacane delivered a perfect goodbye present for the stadium and Cagliari’s fans, scoring a last minute winner, to clinch a 2-1 win over AC Milan.
Finally, on 1 June 2017 Sant’Elia definitively closed its doors. To mark the occasion a friendly game between former players and friends of the club was arranged. Honduran striker David Suazo, who’d scored 94 goals in 255 appearances for the Rossoblù between 1999 and 2007 scored the final goal.
While Cagliari may have moved on, they haven’t moved far, with their new - but temporary - Unipol Domus, sitting right next door. Meanwhile plans to build a new stadium on the Sant’Elia site appear close to being unlocked.
For now, Sant’Elia stands like a ghostly monument to all those famous memories and players from years gone by. From Gigi Riva’s opening goal against Massese to Fabio Pisacane’s late winner over AC Milan, Sant’Elia witnessed almost 50 years of magic.
